Television (TV) viewers are very familiar with printed programming schedules that appear in daily newspapers or weekly magazines, such as TV Guide. The printed program guide lists the various television shows in relation to their scheduled viewing time on a day-to-day basis.
Cable TV systems often include a channel with a video broadcast of the printed program guide. The cable channel is dedicated to displaying listings of programs available on the different available channels. The listings are commonly arranged in a grid. Each column of the grid represents a particular time slot, such as 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Each row represents a particular broadcast or cable channel, such as ABC, PBS, or ESPN. The various scheduled programs or shows are arranged within the rows and columns, indicating the channels and times at which they can be found. The grid is continuously scrolled vertically so that a viewer can scan a continuously refreshing set of programs within three or four time slots.
Data regarding the available programs is typically received by a cable system as a plurality of data records. Each available program has a single corresponding data record indicating a variety of information about the program, such as its channel, its starting and ending times, its title, names of starring actors, whether closed-captioning and stereo are available, and perhaps a brief description of the program. It is not difficult to format a grid, such as described above, from this type of data records. The grid is typically formatted once, at the cable system's headend, and broadcast repeatedly and continuously to the thousands of homes served by the cable system.
Newer, interactive cable distribution systems feature electronic program guides (EPGs) which function somewhat similar to the broadcast program listing channels described above. Rather than scrolling automatically, however, an EPG allows a viewer to use a remote control device to scroll as desired both horizontally and vertically through a program grid. This functionality utilizes the two-way communications capabilities of interactive cable systems.
The EPG is typically implemented in software which runs on a set-top box (STB) connected between a TV and a cable system home entry line. When scrolling to a new column or row, the STB inserts the appropriate programming information into each new row or column. This information is either cached at the STB, or requested from the cable system's headend.
Currently, the EPGs are commonly used to help subscribers determine which programming most interests them. They also allow the subscriber to rapidly determine what is available in television programming and to rapidly locate the appropriate channel.
EPGs may also contain advertising, and typically do so by using space in one portion of the screen to display a static advertisement. These advertisements are generally pre-programmed and the same advertisements are displayed to all the subscribers (viewers). Often, the vast majority of the viewers of the advertisement deems the advertisement irrelevant and ignores it.
Thus, there remains a need for a method and an apparatus for delivering targeted advertisements within the EPG.